Saturday, September 6, 2008

Subrato Bagchi is the gardener at Mindtree. He takes care not of the trees and plants in their corporate office garden, but of the mind trees that the organization nurtures. Quoting from the website - "In this new role, Bagchi spends one-on-one time with the Top-100 leaders at MindTree on their ‘personal-professional’ issues to expand leadership capacity and build readiness for taking MindTree into the billion-dollar league. In addition, Bagchi works at the grassroots by making himself available to its 45 Communities of Practice that foster organizational learning, innovation and volunteerism within the organization". I don't really know anything about the organization. He writes a column for various magazines and papers, in which he hasn't caught my attention, if I have ever come across them. He has also written a few books, which I haven't read. But, I found this post - Go, kiss the world! yesterday, and perhaps you should read it as well. More on this later then.

Going back toBBC, as I promised, am following up with details of a few pages from it which we like :) Today, the music and song section, which is among the first things we explored. You can check out the songs according to the characters/shows, the themes (eg. counting number songs, songs to make games with or theme songs from shows), whether you want to just watch and listen, or read along, or join in; and finally, by name, in alphabetical order. Some songs like those from the Tweenies show, are just songs with a little repeating animation in a tiny window, but others, like the Boogie beebies Karaoke are full screen. Boogie beebies does a wonderful job of making a song and dance about the everyday things - riding a carousel, or a football game for instance. Just the thing for young children who really should not be made to repeat what goes by the name of dancing in movies nowadays. Gyrating pelvises and suggestive gestures carried out by children made up for the tv are quite frankly obscene, not cute, but it seems to be the Indian mindset nowadays that this constitutes 'talent', so who is to argue? Anyway, I would suggest exposing kids to this kind of dances as well, if you are so inclined.

Do remember however, that the actual videos from this program are in small windows, low resolution even for high bandwidths, and not downloadable so if you want to watch them again, the whole slow process starts fresh all over. That said, they are still something to watch!

The Autumnwatch and Springwatch songs are larger good quality videos, and the autumn harvest song is especially watchable for its lilting bhangra style music.

Also check out the Razzledazzle songs in Razzledazzle says - meant to inculcate the sense of rhythm in the very young. Very tiny songs but loved even by infants. There are other musical games here as well, if you follow the link to Razzledazzle home. From each game, or song, you have the choice of returning to where you came from using either the back button on your browser of the list of pages you've been on recently at the bottom of the page itself, or going on and exploring the home page of the character or show you have chosen.

Another favourite is the alphabet song with Chris Jarvis - nice song, with one animal for each alphabet, and there are couple of associated games as well. Unfortunately, it is not loading currently on this machine so you don't get to see the animals below -

If you want musical games, go to the music and art themed selection in the fun and games section and explore. In particular the animal soundscapes game was a great favourite, but others are no less likeable. Check them out!

P.S. From the Lion King 1 1/2, the following -"Pumba, question! Is it possible to fall off the edge of the earth?" as Timon rides on a floating Pumba down a river towards what appears to be a straight line of nothingness."Er, technically no..." and they promptly fall down the huge waterfall afterwards.

So also my question, assuming you have done your homework and read the link I gave you earlier in the lesson. Reading that post, a speech given to the class of 2006 at IIM, I was struck by the distance one needs to back off to be able to achieve this kind of outlook on life. His parents, with all their own concerns and worries, still had this ability to look at their own lives in perspective. Try it. Back off from your current concerns of what you have to do the next moment or how you have left the door open and it is draughty, or when you are going to go play the next soccer game. Back off from the day to day life, from your Life This Year, back off and keep walking backwards to see your past zoom into the perspective of nothingness. Stand back, emotionally and mentally, and review your life again in terms of the successes you have achieved, and by what parameters. What paradigms did you use to define yourself, to know your wants and desires, and to fulfill them? The larger the distance, the better the clarity of vision, whether it is the past you are looking at, or the present. When do you start seeing things differently?What is the distance needed, and at what cost? What do you gain, and what do you lose? And, at what distance would one fall off the edge of the earth, and is that fall into the abyss of despair or the Shangri-La of paradise found by Timon and Pumba?

P.P.S. Some of the photos above have been digitally edited just a tiny bit for a better fit, but are otherwise quite authentic.

P.P.P.S. Why does blogger have issues with simple things like changing the font colour? I have tried and tried and it refuses to change colour of some of the sentences above. Weird.

2 comments:

Thanks for the link Moncheconch. I am on the lookout for new games at all times, even though my toddler is now a pre-schooler, because I enjoy the creativity behind them. Have you tried the Kneebouncer and Poisson Rouge sites? They both have been updated since I last wrote about them, and are even better!

Who am I?

What is this about?

Hello, new age internet baby! As times change, so do modes of instruction and entertainment, and the contents therein. Technology brings its own set of skills to master, even if minor ones. 'Hello, net baby' is a blog to showcase my collection of websites for young children. The title of each post will indicate how good I think the site is, on a scale of 1 to 5; the post itself is in two parts - some general chatter, in black, and the 'baby' part, in blue. A postscript section will always follow with strings of thought which are best handled separate from the main post. In some cases, it may even hold the main idea!

Feel free to disregard the extra chit chat and go straight to the section on websites. Your questions, suggestions and comments are welcome.